one time you found him in my room,” she lied to spare her.
“Has he done anything else to you?”
“No, just…the touching.”
“Did you lead him on?” The words choked her.
“No, how could I? Why would I?” Her voice croaked through pain and upset and the knowledge that her mother couldn’t help her. She watched as her mother stood up and, like a blind woman, wandered out of the room to nowhere in particular.
That was the family: David and Lucy Jones, parents to twelve-year-old Carrie Anne Jones. It was just the three of them and they were all running away. Carrie Anne dared not think of it and tried to keep it locked in the back of her mind, whereas her parents denied the existence of any kind of problem and saw their leaving as just a fresh start somewhere new, together as a normal solid family. Yet it was there like a presence in another room, silent and unseen but there nonetheless.
Carrie Anne remembered sitting in the bathroom, hating herself and the memories trapped within her. Her mother knew they were there. But now instead of relief and sanctuary there was only confusion. Carrie Anne knew what her father had been doing all these years was wrong, very wrong. She hated her weakness in not being able to call for help. She prayed every day someone would notice she was different and help her. It never happened. When she was younger, when she lay in her dark bedroom she would pile her teddy bears and dolls in a soft wall on her bed. She had a fragile hope of the wall stopping her father, but it never did. Although, try as she may, she could not hate either her mother or father. She was their daughter and it was her duty to love them, despite the cruel loss of her childhood and alienation of her innocence. So instead, she did the only thing she could do, and hated herself. She had found what she was looking for in the bathroom. A razor blade of her father’s from a cabinet on the wall. The orange plastic around the sliver of steel was broken easily against the tiled floor. She paused with the blade shining under the gaze of darkness. She pushed the blade against her skin, slowly and softer. Then, after holding it there a moment, she pushed it deeper still. There was no pain as the skin split, the blade being so sharp it only caused a slight stinging sensation. Immediately she felt all her frustration pour from her arm with the blood that pooled around the razor. She pushed the blade against her skin again and again, creating a tally-marked pattern. Each cut taking away heaviness that crushed her ribs. Her goal here was not to die, but to create a physical pain, a distraction from the worse pain from the scars that penetrated her soul. But as the blood flowed, that relief turned to fear, as she dripped from the patterns criss crossing her skin.
Carrie Anne who had learned to keep silent for most of her life screamed and screamed and screamed.
Her mother and father ran to her, bleary-eyed from being woken, their shocked faces and fear as they stemmed the bleeding with towels from the room.
“What did you do?” they accused. “What did you do?”
Carrie Anne remembered being sat at the dining room table. The room with the red velvet wallpaper that she had always hated but had been there since she had been born. Tears were stinging her eyes and she looked at her mother for love and comfort from the seat opposite. But her mother had withdrawn into herself and couldn’t meet her daughter’s gaze. Carrie Anne’s father paced the dining room talking with the determination of a man trying to convince himself as well as those listening. He paced up and down. He wore his usual outfit of a cheap shirt and jeans a size too big. It had been a few days since she had been found in the bathroom but the memory was fresh…
“Get the first aid kit,” shouted father.
Mother was crying as she ran from the room, reluctant but hurrying. In one hand father gripped her face; the other held the soaking towel against Carrie Anne’s arm.
“Why? Do you want to destroy your mother? Is that what you want?” He spoke in an angered whisper; his teeth were gritted and spittle ran from his chin.
“If you do this, if this continues, you will kill your mother and destroy this family. Now I promise I won’t touch you again. I’m clear now; I just got confused how I loved you. This attention seeking needs to stop. Do you understand me?”
She nodded. With that, Carrie Anne resigned herself to the fact that this was her life now. As the last of her self-esteem bled from her, Mother entered the room…
Carrie Anne’s arms were bandaged. They didn’t hurt but they itched like dry scratches infected by ants.
“I’ve been talking on the phone to a few people and I’ve decided to do what is best for this family.”
“She needs medical help, David,” Carrie Anne’s mother said. “We need to get her some help.”
They both looked at Carrie Anne who had hung her head down.
“And what would you tell them, Carrie Anne?” Her father was frantic.
“Nothing,” she whispered.
“No, we can’t let things destroy this family. I’ve been busy; I told you.”
“What are you saying, David?” Her mother finally spoke but it was without conviction; there was only defeat.
“I’ve given notice on the house, and I’ve put a deposit on another, far from here, where no one knows us, where we can live in peace without fear of persecution because of a mistake. We can be a family.” Throughout his entire speech, there was no pleading for forgiveness in his voice, no real sense he had done wrong.
Carrie Anne wanted to stand and scream from the top of her lungs. To cry for help and tell the world what had happened to her. She wanted to shake her mother, to say help me, be a mum and help me. And in her mind for the briefest of moments she did just that and reality changed to match her version of it and she was away from the nightmare that was her life. But that was for only the briefest of moments. All she could do was to cry bitter child’s tears. However, things were just the way they were. Carrie Anne could see that. She saw it in the way he looked at her and in his eyes; she knew he was alluding to their previous conversation. Agree, keep quiet or destroy her mother.
Carrie Anne’s attention snapped back to her surroundings. She was still in the car.. It had stopped raining yet the clouds still loomed threatening more misery to come. They parked at a service station. There were a couple of small shops and a café. A petrol station stood not too far from the car park. People were coming and going from their cars, buying tea and coffee and sweets for their children. Living normal lives. Carrie Anne’s mother undid her seat belt; she turned to speak to her daughter.
“You’ve been daydreaming, love; what were you thinking about?”
“Nothing much, just trying to fall asleep,” she replied.
Her mother’s eyes flickered over Carrie Anne as if trying to read her mind. Satisfied at the answer her mother smiled.
“Let’s stretch our legs; still got a bit to go,” said Dad. As he left the car the wind and violent sounds of the nearby road forced themselves into the car until the door was closed again.
“Come on,” her mother added.
The breeze outside was strong and sharp. Carrie Anne wrapped her black leather bomber jacket around her. It offered little protection from the wretched day. There was a large car park with a garish yellow petrol station servicing huge trucks from the motorway. Carrie Anne’s father walked over to the café on the other side
